Chapter 6: The First Date

(Jenna POV)

Danny Nichols is my mate.

Danny Nichols is my mate.

Danny Nichols is my mate.

I wasn’t sure whether to be thrilled or horrified.  I had crushed on Danny for so many years, never thinking for a moment that we would be mated.

And yet we were.

I didn’t even know how it was possible.  Danny had been mated before.  That meant that I was his second-chance mate.  But I had never been mated, so he was my first.

Usually, the Moon Goddess pairs first mates with first mates, and second chance mates with second chance mates.  I didn’t know if that that was an absolute rule, but that is what I had always heard of happening. 

So how could Danny and I be paired?  I mean, I guess it is possible that my first mate died and so I am on my second chance mate without knowing it… but wouldn’t I know that somehow?

It was all so confusing.

At the same time that all of these thoughts were going through my head, Danny unintentionally brought up one of the biggest problems that we would have:  I didn’t live in the pack anymore.

Danny didn’t seem to know about my past, and he didn’t seem to realize what a disaster it would be for me to move back. 

But I did.

When Danny brought the issue up, I immediately thought about my mother and all the pack members who had bullied me growing up.  I could not see them accepting me as Danny’s mate.  I was, after all, the illegitimate, b&stard daughter who had ruined her mother’s life by being born.

Granted, since being back, I had not encountered anyone who remembered me that way… but it would happen soon enough.  Especially once the werewolf tabloids got wind of Danny being mated again.  They would easily dig up all the dirt in my background, and my mother would probably give them lots of juicy quotes for their stories.

“It is only a matter of time before Beta Nichols rejects my daughter,” she might say.  “She ruins lives, not helps them.  Her father didn’t want her, and I didn’t want her.  Her blood is tainted.  She is a curse from the Moon Goddess.”

Sigh.

I know that I should have told Danny what I was worried about, and why the idea of moving back to the Blue River Mountain Pack filled me with dread.  But the teenage fangirl in me kept my lips sealed, choosing to just give vague answers instead. 

“Just let us have this moment,” the teenage me begged.  “Let him like us a little longer.”

I am embarrassed to say that the adult me sort-of wanted to impress Danny too.  Okay, not sort-of.  The adult me wanted to impress him just as much as teenage me. 

I hated that.  I was a strong, confident lawyer who dealt with difficult clients and opposing counsel every day.  I was far from a pushover.  I had fought hard for everything that I had.  I was strong.  I was smart.  I was successful.

But I was also half-human.

Danny had only grown more handsome with time.  His smile was even more charming in person than it was in pictures.  And he seemed to be genuinely interested in me, and to genuinely care about what I wanted.

The feeling of being wanted and cared for by my teenage crush was addicting.  Add to that the power of the mate bond itself –not to mention Willow’s own strong draw to our mate-- and I was a goner.

So …even if I hated being vulnerable …even if I worried that it could not last… I wanted to believe that it could.  Or at least pretend that it could.  Just for a while.

And that is how I ended up at dinner with Beta Danny Nichols.

***

Danny took me to a cozy Italian restaurant.  It was private and quiet, and it had romantic lighting and flowers everywhere.  I didn’t even know that the pack had a place like this within its borders.

Danny explained that it was a private restaurant, reserved for high-ranking officials within the pack.  They used it for confidential meetings and negotiations, and when they wanted privacy. 

We walked into the restaurant hand-in-hand, and we were seated at a table near a window overlooking the forest.

Danny ordered a couple of bottles of wine, and we talked about various topics while we waited for our dinners to arrive.  He told me about things that had changed at the pack in the past eight years, and I told him a little bit about my job and cases that I had worked on.

Danny was smart, charming, and easy to talk to, and I found myself laughing throughout the dinner.

But then, towards the end, our conversation shifted to a more serious topic.

“Were you mated before?” he asked.

I shook my head.  “No.”

He seemed as puzzled as I was.  “So I am your first mate?” 

“Yes.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah.”

“You do know that I was mated before?” he asked gingerly.

For some reason, the question immediately caused alarm bells to go off in my gut.  If my gut had a voice, it probably would have screamed, “Caution, danger ahead.”